The Prophetess and the Patriarch evokes one of the most dramatic and consequential moments in British history—the trial and execution of Charles I (the “Patriarch” of the title). Elizabeth Poole was a seamstress of obscure background, a Particular Baptist who, by dint of her claim to the role of prophet, participated in the debates over the King's fate. (“Particular” Baptists were those who accepted the Reformed doctrine of the limitation of the Atonement to the elect as opposed to “General” Baptists who were Arminian in their doctrine.) Poole supported the end of the monarchy but opposed the King's execution. Katharine Gillespie, the editor of the volume, places this in the context of the rejection of patriarchal authority both by the English revolutionaries and by Poole in her own life. Poole had rejected the patriarchal authority of her father Robert Poole, a Church of England man, to join the Baptists.

Poole's three pamphlets, A Vision: Wherein is Manifested the Disease and Cure of the Kingdom (1648), An Alarm of War (1649), and An[other] Alarm of War (1649), take up less than fifty pages of The Prophetess and the Patriarch. The rest of the book consists of a lengthy introduction by Gillespie and appendices of writings contemporary to Poole, placing her work in context. Poole's two appearances before the General Council at Whitehall are documented in excerpts from the notes of William Clarke. The context of the Particular Baptist movement and Poole's history within it is represented by two documents from Particular Baptist leader William Kiffin, The Confession of Faith (1644) and A Brief Remonstrance (1645) recounting a confrontation between Kiffin and Elizabeth's father Robert Poole, shortly after Elizabeth had left her family to join Kiffin's congregation. (By the time of her pamphlets, Poole had left Kiffin's congregation to join another Baptist congregation at Abingdon led by John Pendarves.) The context of independent women preachers during the Civil War is represented by the anonymous misogynist pamphlet A Discovery of Six Women Preachers (1641).

Two well-known writings cited by Poole are included: an excerpt from Henry Ireton's A Remonstrance of His Excellency Thomas Lord Fairfax (1648), and John Lilburne's Foundations of Freedom; or, An Agreement of the People (1648), which Poole credited with inspiring her to make her second appearance before the General Council. The book also includes three anonymous pamphlets that mention Poole, the newsbook The Manner of the Deposition of Charles Stewart, King of England (1649), an excerpt from To Xeiphos Ton Martyron (1651) which blamed the execution of the King on a conspiracy of Oliver Cromwell, the Independents, and Spain, and The English Devil; or, Cromwell and His Monstrous Witch (1660) which shows the continued potency of the link between Cromwell and Poole, the “monstrous witch” of the title. Being likened to a witch was an extreme of the misogynistic abuse to which Poole, like other women prophets, was subjected. Finally, there are two general writings on the questions facing English revolutionaries in the late 1640s: Ireton and John Lambert's well-known The Heads of the Proposals (1647) and The Copies of Several Letters Contrary to the Opinion of the Present Powers (1649) by the less well-known Francis White, an officer in the New Model Army who shared Poole's belief that the King, while guilty of treason, should not be executed.

Poole's writings are influenced by her own experiences and by her contact with the circle around the minister and alchemist John Pordage. She shared the belief that Charles had forfeited his entitlement to rule, although she envisioned the resolution of the relationship between England and its former King, the “husband” of the realm, as a “divorce” rather than a killing. She supported the authority of the army as opposed to both the Royalists and the Levellers, who supported greater democracy. Her subsequent works are in part a response to Kiffin's accusations of sexual impropriety in her past. The first Alarm of War includes a letter vouching for her character by “T.P.,” presumably Thomasine Pendarves, wife of John. The second Alarm of War shows that the split between Poole and Kiffin's congregation had become even more bitter.

Although Poole's published works cover only a short span of time, she remained active in radical circles for many years. She preached in defense of John Lilburne following his illegal return to England in 1653. Her last appearance in the historical record is in 1668, when she was sentenced to the Gatehouse for operating an illegal press in cooperation with the notorious radical Elizabeth Calvert.

The Prophetess and the Patriarch contains proper, bottom-of-the-page footnotes, a good bibliography divided into primary and secondary sources, and an adequate index. It will be of interest to students of seventeenth-century English women, political and religious Dissent, and the civil war period in England.